Archive for the ‘Christianity’ Category

Prayers were answered yesterday morning when members of my physician/nurse practitioner team decided to re-adjust the amount of one of my chemo drugs. They felt the level of pain I described occurring after the first infusion, especially as it originated in my back, indicated that my kidneys were under distress. They also increased the intensity of the pain meds so I will not have to take as many pills to experience the same level of comfort, thus decreasing the added stress on my kidneys with the over-digestion of acetaminophen (Tylenol) …

I grew up believing that my doctor’s opinion were always correct, and that it was disrespectful to comment or question his advice. As an adult I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, that I must serve as the most important member of my personal healthcare team. I’ve learned that it’s okay to disagree with my doctor’s advice, and to seek another opinion, or physician, if I deem it necessary for my own continued good health. Now I come to appointments questions written down, poised to write down the answers I receive, understanding my right to know what’s happening within my own body.

Extensive reading, research and interviews have helped me unveil some of the mystery behind healing. While my own life experiences have taught me that members of the healthcare profession are humans just like the rest of us. Which means they have families, their own illnesses, financial uncertainties, experiences and crises as do we. As patients we have the right to communicate our true worries, triumphs and concerns – to sometimes make ourselves loud and obnoxious so that we are heard and our needs met …

Much of diagnostic medicine is based upon hypotheses, educated guesses about what should or should not happen to you, based on what did or did not happen to the last patient. So it’s critical that patients communicate honestly with their medical teams. In turn, a knowledgeable patient is a wise patient, and wise patients follow their knowledgeable physicians’ directions …

I am someone who looks for God in ordinary, every day experiences and crises, believing as I do that the sum total of our every day experiences and crises constitute the totality and legacy of our individual and communal lives. Each day is built upon the strength of the last; likewise, each week, month, year, and decade acts as a foundation for the next and the whole becomes the legacy we leave behind.

Bishop T.D. Jakes regularly counsels his parishioners at The Potter’s House in Dallas that “God is good all the time, and all the time, God is good.”

Many Christians are under the mistaken notion, to paraphrase Kirk Franklin, that storms are God’s way of punishing us. But I too submit that this is not true theology, that rather it is a form of Christian thinking that more reflects how we treat one another, rather than how God treats his/her beloved children.

Just as plants require sunlight and warm weather to grow, we too require rain and darkness over the course of a day, of a season in order to become the flowers we were meant to be.

So no, I don’t believe God did not give us the spirit of fear. She not only gave us the spirit of fear, but the spirit of love, and determination, and courage as well. Even Jesus, who we esteem above all, acknowledged the spirit of fear possessing him when he asked God to remove the challenge that was before him.

Often we are afraid to admit our fear, to embrace it and acknowledge it because we don’t want to appear weak, vulnerable. But sometimes that’s where we are, and fear is just what we feel.